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Multi-Channel Marketing: A Lesson from Politics

If you've ever signed up to volunteer, donated money, or signaled interest of any kind in a political party and/or campaign, then you are experiencing the leading edge of multi-channel marketing. Ten years ago, online porn and gambling sites led the way in transaction processing innovations (really, they did) and today political campaigns in many respects are teaching us all a thing or two about how to find, connect, and leverage people of similar interests and political persuasions for the purpose of volunteering and fundraising. Andy Sack, the co-founder and CEO of Judy's Book and a former boss, has talked and blogged about finding a topic about which people are passionate as being a requisite for a successful online community. He's right and these days there is no topic many of us are more passionate about than politics. As a result, the political campaigns are being led by their supporters and 20-something staff members to dive into a broad array of social media technologies in an effort to find and engage individuals and communities with similar passions and political beliefs. In 2004, Meetups became an integral part of every campaign. Since then, campaigns have come to recognize the power of user-generated media as practiced by hundreds of millions of people on MySpace, Facebook, Blogs, Twitter, and more. What is happening today is a truly multi-channel approach to getting the message out with clear calls to action to people to including donate money, write letters/email, volunteer, or attend an event. Each of these activities being the bread and butter of American grassroots politics since the birth of our nation. The tactics and scale of reaching people is undergoing a revolution before our very eyes but the response these efforts are designed to engender hasn't change much. What this means for online marketers is that we can and will learn a lot by watching how the 2008 political campaigns identify, engage, and motivate people to act on their behalf. Whether your objectives are to build brand awareness, generate buzz, or increase order volumes, what the campaigns are doing online will provide a blueprint for optimal roles that social and user generated media can play in your marketing mix.

Emerging Trend: Place-Shifting Powered by Mobile Devices

The other night I couldn't sleep and so I reached over to the nightstand and grabbed my Blackberry. I loaded my RSS feeds in the mobile view of Google Reader and spent the next 30 minutes catching up on business and political news. What is really striking about this was how simple and satisfying the experience of reading news and editorial on my Blackberry has become. Adding to the intrigue, I recently picked up a video iPod and have discovered the joys of photos and video on the super-small screen. For years people have been talking about the time-shifting that took off with TiVo and has only accelerated with the explosion of online video. The mass adoption of mobile devices like the Blackberry and iPod has suddenly made place-shifting commonplace. I think it's useful to frame the concept in more general terms than simply watching TV from any laptop or device. Place-shifting is being driven by content as much as it is by a specific medium (TV). It's common knowledge that people are spending more time online and less in front of their TVs because that's where the more interesting and interactive content is. It's not about getting TV anywhere, it's about getting the greatest selection of content. So what are the implications for online marketing? A few things come to mind: 1. Content rules more than ever. Strategies and plans need to be formulated with multiple channels and media in mind. Search still rules but the simplest mobile content channels (RSS, SMS, etc.) will continue to rapidly grow in importance. 2. Interactivity and participation work really well in a mobile world. When developing ideas for interactive campaigns consider the mobile user. Reaching this audience is still relatively difficult to do with compelling content but the barriers to doing so are falling rapidly. Get just a little bit ahead of the curve and incremental improvements to any online marketing program can be the result. 3. Tracking and analytics are lagging. As far as I know, the most popular analytics tools do not provide much visibility into the ways in which the mobile users are accessing and interacting with online sites and content. This will change but it remains a challenge. Place-shifting is real and is increasingly relevant to online marketing. Successful strategies in the days to come will hinge in part to how well marketers exploit the opportunities and avoid the pitfalls of this emerging trend.

What Google's Preferred Cost Bidding Means to Online Marketers

Notable post about GoogleClick over at Search Engine Land today. I have believed since the early days of PPC advertising that the correct way to approach the channel is also the simplest from a marketer's perspective. If, as a marketer, you have a good grasp on the unit contribution of each product/service you offer and if you have a good idea of the margin you are willing to accept each time you sell said product/service, then there is little benefit to spending a lot of time managing bids. This basic rule applies to all media, not just online ads but PPC in particular provides all of the information marketers need to manage their spend in this fashion. The fact that Google is now enabling bid management to be handled in this fashion makes tons of sense and will, as the Search Engine Land post points out, create a significant amount of additional pressure on SEM and online shops to deliver material value to clients. In addition to the marketing services firms that are affected by this new feature, it will also be interesting to watch how lead gen businesses like Service Magic and HouseValues are impacted by it over the long run. Isn't Preferred Cost Bidding really what lead gen is all about from an advertiser perspective?

Is the Web 2.0 Party Over?

A portentous occurrence of late has been the increase in posts and articles about something called "Web 3.0". I suspect this is another a lengthening list of events that signal collectively the end of Web 2.0 as we know (?) it. (full disclosure I worked for a year for a company that was labeled proudly a Web 2.0 company) In any event, it will be interesting in the coming months and quarters to see what happens to the thousands of Web 2.0 companies out there that received positive attention from the Web 2.0 Kingmaker along the way and are still in search of big-time monetization opportunities as they await the call from the corp dev guys over at (pick one) Google, Yahoo, News Corp, IAC, Microsoft, ... Given the manageable burn (this isn't 99) of the well-run companies in this space and the still-low cost of VC capital, any shake-out will take time. Based on conversations I've had with some of the local VCs and CEOs, the commodity that is increasingly in limited supply is the patience of investors.

Web 2.0 Seattle Companies - The Roundup as of early 2007

Web 2.0... Web 3.0... (I'm personally waiting for someone to appoint themselves the true futurist of all things Internet and write an article about what Web 4.0 will be all about. Maybe it will be like the fashion industry and we'll just enter a continuously repeating cycle of mining trends from 15-20 years prior and Web 4.0 will kickoff in 2018 with another cycle of wacky niche online retailers, a la 1998....) Well, let's assume that at the moment we're still firmly in the middle of the Web 2.0 era. In line with that, John Cook over at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer did another roundup recently of the long, distinguished list of Web 2.0 companies in the Pacific Northwest. An interesting read and a handy bookmark for people who like to "kick the tires" on a new company that they heard about over cocktails in Belltown... Here's the link to John's Pacific Northwest Web 2.0 company list. And, incidentally [begin self-promotion] Spring Creek Group is associated with a few companies on this list or soon to be on this list...[end self-promotion], so we're big fans and supporters of several of these local companies too. Cheers.

Clever Obama Campaign Video or Genius iPod Product Placement?

A week or so ago, this video started showing up on left-leaning political blogs like Daily Kos. For those of you that don't remember the original Apple ad upon which this is based, it ran only once during a Super Bowl. In spite of its limited run, it received a tremendous amount of favorable coverage and still gets shown as part of marketing classes at universities around the country as an example of truly creative, effective advertising that works on multiple levels. But I digress... I caught a bit of the discussion about the video tonight on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC show where they speculated about who was behind it. Could it be Obama's campaign, a conservative outfit, or someone else? Over the course of the conversation, they showed a loop of the video. As I watched, something caught my eye. So, I sat down at my computer, found the video on YouTube and went through it frame-by-frame to be sure I wasn't imagining it. Here's a screenshot: Notice anything? Clearly Olbermann and Cilliza did not as they speculated on who would have the motivation and the ability to do such a thing while forgetting the obvious suspect: Apple and/or their agency of record (TBWA\Chiat\Day) Unless, I've lost my mind, I could swear that's an iPod clipped to her waste band and iPods weren’t even a glimmer in Steve Job’s eye back then. My guess is that based on recent coverage of Obama's "rock star" treatment in front of adoring crowds around the country, Apple realized Obama's got some serious mojo and is perceived as someone new, fresh, and disruptive in politics today. Based on this not terribly original insight, they found an extremely clever way to generate HUGE free publicity and PR for their corporate image and the iPod. What's more, if it is Apple behind this then they picked a target audience that is PERFECT at both the strategic and tactical levels for this to work. Political blogs are the most heavily trafficked in general with well educated readerships that are young(ish) and engaged. In addition, a lot of these folks are also active in online communities including Flickr, MySpace, and Facebook. Not saying it’s Apple but they are the odds on favorite in my mind. I just can’t think of a simpler explanation for the iPod showing up in multiple frames throughout the video and you know what William of Occam would have to say in response. It's there for a reason and the simplest explanation is there's a commercial purpose behind it. One final thought on this relates to what the video actually is. I've tried not to call it an ad in this post for a reason. It's not one. No one has paid a dime to place it anywhere. 100% of the distribution has been for free if you don't count the time schleps like me have spent posting it on blogs. That's interesting for a couple of reasons. First, I suspect that means it's not governed by campaign finance laws (not positive but it would stand to reason). Second, its yet another demonstration of the willingness of individuals to spread a message when it's packaged creatively and distributed for free. Update: Nevermind.

Micro-Communities that Customers Actually Trust

This month's Fast Company is required reading from beginning to end: a fascinating article about Wikipedia becoming the de facto taxonomy of the web (and challenging Google's dominance of "trusted search" in the process), a great profile of a design shop with complete authenticity, and some empowering tools for socially responsible investors. A little one-pager that caught my eye as well, though, is about "Building a New Nest" -- companies that have cracked the challenge of building trusted online communities that actually create value for their customers without (obviously) using it as a marketing opportunity. Of course, the message of these examples is: deliver value and people will thank you, and reward you, for it. Give it a read here. [Fair warning - you need FC's little code from page 10. But that's my own little plug for you to go buy the issue if you don't already receive it -- it's well worth it.] We often get asked whether or not potential customers will really trust a company's community - "why wouldn't they go find another community to talk about these things?" This little article is just a nice, concise proof-point that occasionally companies get it right. The key takeaway is: "Make it useful, unique, valuable, and trustworthy... and if you don't abuse the trust, you'll be rewarded for it." Sounds obvious, but it's hard to get right. And those are the principles for fostering a good community out in the "real world" too.

ShoppingPath Shopping Comparison UI

I came across this post about ShoppingPath's cool new product comparison UI on Read/Write Web tonight. If you have a minute, you can try it out here. While it is no doubt a creative presentation of important information to anyone in the market for consumer electronics, I'm not sold on the idea that it offers a more effective means of merchandising for anyone with an interest in selling products. It no doubt is fun to play with but as a tool for people to actually shop with, I didn't find it all that helpful. The larger point is that creating stickiness in a retail context is only as good as its ability to convert shoppers into buyers. At the end of the day, shoppers seek satisfaction through the purchase of goods and services. To the extent that a site can make that experience more fun and enjoyable along the way then everybody wins. In addition to ShoppingPath, there are other sites out there, Mpire immediately comes to mind, that are also doing innovative things with aggregated price and product information. The question remains how do/will these new and different approaches lift click-through and conversion rates thereby displacing the dominant players in the comparison shopping space?

Economics of Ad-Based Online Businesses

Jeremy Lieuw on the Lightspeed Ventures blog had an interesting post a week ago positing a thesis about the realities of growing a site's annual ad revenue to $50M. The key take-aways as summarized here by Tim O'Reilly:

• At the $1 RPM (CPM/CPA/CPC) level achieved by most general sites, you need 4 billion page views/month.
• At the $5 RPM level achieved by demographically targeted sites, you need 800 million/month.
• At the $20 RPM level achieved by highly targeted sites, you need 200 million/month.

These numbers are pretty telling. Building an ad-based online business is hard in particular when you're counting on an exit for the investment of time and capital to pay-off. An interesting side-note to the original post is its focus on top-line revenue as the core metric used to establish the value of an online ad-based business. In the short run, it might not make much difference to a VC whether one uses revenue, income, or EBIDTA to value a business but it signals, what I think is a dubious perspective. I question the value of this perspective to entrepreneurs because while revenue is necessary it alone is insufficient to create a growing, sustainable business. What is both necessary AND sufficient to fuel the growth of an online ad-based business is a talented team, a great idea, and, last but not least, cashflow and profits as early as possible. Focusing on top-line causes one to lose site of where the value and leverage needed to invest in and grow our business really comes from which is, in every industry of every kind, the same thing: cashflow.

Time Spent on Google, Yahoo!, MySpace, and other sites

Compete.com released data a while back estimating the amount of time spent online across 20 sites. Don Dodge gave an informed take on this data here. One of the points that missing in all of the discussion is the practical utility of the information presented. That is not to say that it's not interesting to ponder on a macro scale how much time a person chosen at random is spending on MySpace, Yahoo, and other sites. My point is that the value of information like this presented in this way is limited. The basic reason is that people are different and the contexts in which they use a MySpace verses a Yahoo! verses a Google are different also. For example, my mother has never and will never spend a second on MySpace eventhough she's online a couple of hours every day. So, in addition to providing interesting data what I'd love to see is data that is useful as well. For starters, how about slicing the time spent by a few basic demographic dimensions (age and gender)? Then we'd have something to talk about...

Chris Anderson on Next-Gen PR

The always interesting Chris Anderson has an interesting post up about the direction in which PR is heading online. By and large, I agree with his perspective as well as the tips for basic blocking and tackling at the end of the post. The only comment worth adding is that as transparency increases a greater burden is placed on the shoulders of the PR folks to know more than what they're pitching that day. They need to know the product, the market, the industry etc. so that they can initiate and carry on informed conversations on behalf of their clients. Another example of how traditional agency models are being disrupted these days.

A Picture Tells One Word

And that word is "Iraq". Edward Tufte has told this story before, but I always feel like it bears repeating when I see a website utilize a clever and compelling graphic device to communicate a concept more effectively than a thousand words ever could. In a quick follow-on to the State of the Union address tonight, the New York Times website propped a terribly insightful interactive graphic (yea javascript - the floating cursor hand of insight) displaying keyword density in President Bush's addresses since taking office. Keyword volumes - and placement! - are displayed on a simple chart for such hot terms in American foreign policy as "Iraq", "Afghanistan", "Medicare", "Oil", and the like. Check it out - Tufte must be cracking a smirk somewhere that all that news that's fit to print now also includes all the interactive graphics that are fit to post...

The DNA of Marketing Strategy

One of my favorite concepts relating to online marketing and commerce is the "Architecture of Participation". Coined by Tim O'Reilly a few years ago, the idea behind the term is that pages, sites, and networks should be built with the notion of user participation in mind. Likewise, online advertisers and marketers are coming to understand the importance and value of constructing campaigns and creative in ways that engender active responses and contributions from consumers. In biology, a genotype is essentially the genetic code (DNA) that an organization carries around with it in each of its cells. A phenotype is the expression of that genotype in the form of features, chemistry, behavior, etc. While the former is the product of conception and does not materially vary over time, the latter evolves and changes through the infinitely complex interactions of specific genes and environment. Interesting (perhaps?) but what does this mean in the context of marketing today? Glad you asked... I find the analogy useful because it makes a clear distinction between what is knowable (the sequence of DNA) and what is virtually unknowable (looking at an individual's DNA and using that to predict his height, hair color, weight, personality, etc.). Today, we're still in control of the DNA of our marketing strategies and messaging but what those actually look like once consumers begin to participate in our campaigns is fraught with a lot more uncertainty. In the next post, I'll share some ideas we have around how to embrace and benefit from the new order of things that puts consumers in the drivers seat.

The Future of Creativity?

Interesting story over at BrandWeek about the commodification of creative. What's most interesting about it is that the angle of the story is exactly backwards. Creativity is precisely what is NOT being commodified. The assets and activities that are being commodified as interactive emerges are distribution (low margin, high-volume), media planning and buying, etc. These days I scratch my head at the thought of contracting with an agency to whom I'm expected to pay big bucks to cover massive overhead from which my business accrues zero incremental value. It doesn't make business sense particularly when one considers the fact that agency business models are heavily weighted in favor of creativity and against performance. Crazy. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend watching a Frontline piece titled "The Persuaders" about the Advertising industry. In particular, Bob Garfield is interviewed and he has, what I think, are some terrific insights into the confounding nature of the industry today and how it has sown the seeds of its own disruption at the hands of massive amounts of data including campaign and creative performance information (ROI). One of my favorite story lines in the piece is about Delta's Song airlines and how "creative" their branding and marketing campaign is to be. At the same time, Garfield (who I think is spot on) acknowledges the obvious that in today's world, the product and the experience consumers have with it is what matters most of all - more than sizzle, more than buzz, more than anything else. You can reach more people with fewer dollars as long as the product delivers. Exciting times if you're more about the steak than the sizzle.

How to Succeed...

2006 was the year that a critical mass of companies marketing to consumers recognized to some degree that communications, advertising, and marketing are now dynamic and two-way. It will be interesting to see how quickly this recognition gets internalized and begins to manifest itself in the form of different revenue models and organizational structures for agencies and firms whose value proposition it is to help companies create awareness and drive sales. We beat the drum of joining the conversation with consumers regularly on this blog and in conversations with clients. We look forward to picking up the pace and intensity this year. For a terrific summary of core principles to market by in 2007, check out the excerpt below from a Business 2.0 piece. (hat tip to AdPulp)

Jeff Hicks

President and CEO, Crispin Porter & Bogusky

Make Your Brand Part of the Conversation

There are three things I think about the most when it comes to making it as a marketer these days. The first one is there's no amount of money I can pay to get my commercial in front of you, because you can powerfully edit what you spend time with. So my job as a marketer is no longer to interrupt, but to produce content that is so relevant, interesting, entertaining, and involving that my best consumers won't want to live without it. The second thing is understanding that instead of brochures and trade shows, marketing now really begins with the product. Great companies are investing a lot of time and attention into trying to make products that market themselves. The last piece is that user-generated content has made it possible for consumers to own your brand, and if they don't, you're not doing your job. The brands that are adopted, blogged about, and parodied the most are the ones that are going to win because they're involved in the evolution of pop culture. If you're scared to have your brand played with, you're going to be left behind.

Great advice and it will be interesting to see which companies head down this path, what the most successful strategies and programs look like, and how it will continue to be fueled by the architecture of participation permeating the Web.

20 Questions

If you've read any write-ups of the popular toys this Holiday season, no doubt you've heard about 20 Questions. I have to confess I was a little late to the party. You can play it online here. It is remarkably accurate and quite addictive. A good example of the "Wisdom of the Crowds" at work...

Lots of sizzle but where is the steak?

Clay Shirky's got a really insightful analysis of Second Life up on Valleywag. I share his skepticism of the longterm potential for SL to transform the way most of us conduct commerce or find entertainment online. After having used it a bit, I came to the conclusion that it required too much time to get started and to figure out. No doubt it appeals to some with the time and inclination (I suspect many of devotees played D&D growing up or would have had they come of age in the 80s) to explore and learn the rules and mores to get along and prosper. Once I had arrived and starting walking/flying around, I quickly realized that it would take me a long, long time to capture any potential benefit. As a father, husband, and business owner I simply don't have the time to spend or desire for a "virtual" payoff. What I do see when I read about or go to Second Life is really clever marketing and promotion. Every mention of the community is accompanied by a quotation of the number of registered users which is, to Shirky's point, a misleading figure. Nevertheless, the power of that 2MM number compels people like me to register, download the software, install it, and enter the world. For online communities that need PR and buzz to build interest and a user-base, this number is vital. People intuitively understand the concept of network effect as applied to online communities and when they hear numbers in the millions, that's enough for some to wonder if they're missing a mindblowing, amazing time. So they register, check it out, and then leave never to return. I suspect the same can and will be said of advertisers drawn to the hype like moths to a flame...

Radical Transparency

Chris Anderson has a series of really interesting and provocative posts up about creating truly transparent media content and properties on the Web. Start here and read each of the posts that follow Take-aways:

• Be where people are. Jeff Jarvis writes about this concept regularly. It's the notion that media must find where people are and take the information, video, music, games, etc. to them. The days of controlling the pipe are numbered.
• Keep the door open. Giving readers, listeners, and/or viewers the opportunity to not only respond but also participate in the shaping of the content over time is a requirement. That's the only world kids and teens know today and the notion is spreading.
• More is more. The more you share with your audience, as long as it's of value to some number of its members anyway, the more they will trust, respect, and value your contributions in return.
• Wikis, Blogs, Web2.0 Mean 0. For most people, these words let alone the concepts behind them mean absolutely nothing and spark very little interest or curiosity. Nevertheless, the principles that Anderson calls out in this series of posts are what are driving the continued growth in the utilization of these technologies and systems as a means for individuals to express themselves and connect with others.

Do yourself and read his posts when you have a moment.

Google and Offline Ads

There is a story (premium link) in the Wall Street Journal today about Google's entry into the offline advertising marketing (print, radio, etc.). We've written about this issue here. While it is truer now than ever that Google presents a major threat to the old-line advertising agencies, it is also true that Google's entry into the offline advertising market is easier said than done. With respect to radio and print, much of it is local. And selling locally means putting feet on the street. Today, Google does not have a salesforce that fits this mold. Anecdotally, I'd venture to guess that much of the growth of AdWords has been powered by a combination of an extraordinarily low-risk cost of entry, terrific return on investment in most cases, and phenomenal word-of-mouth. In other words, the service is so good, its customers drive awareness and it sells itself. Selling print and radio spots presents an entirely different set of challenges for Google as the article points out. A logical move for Google to make if it's serious about entering the offline ad markets is strategic alliances with and/or acquisitions of media (newspapers) and/or directories (yellow pages) that already have large salesforces with existing relationships with all of the local ad buyers.

Ad Industry Coopetition

There is a really good piece by Joe Marchese up on MediaPost. The thesis is that Google is delivering transparency and accountability to advertisers that heretofor have been missing from the services delivered to advertisers by traditional ad agencies. We've written a bit about this from time-to-time on this blog. See here, here, and here. Suffice to say, we firmly believe that advertising is heading in the direction of greater transparency and accountability. Given the entrenched business models and compensation structures, that's a transition that's easier said than done for many large advertising and pr agencies. Value chains are being remade to leverage the data and information that is now available to customers and producers. The benefits of the availability of this information are flowing directly to the producers and customers. The traditional service providers (distribution, pr, advertising, retail, etc.) in the middle are getting squeezed bigtime.

A Better Mousetrap

I LOVE Kayak.com. Still not sure what they're business model is, I haven't researched it enough, but I'm guessing they're working out deals with all the sites and services they crawl to aggregate results for users on a referral basis or something. In any case, this is a wonderful example of a FREE service that delivers huge value to users by saving you time online AND money. Simple design, clean interface, and it "just works" without extra bells and whistles. Looking at how Farecast and others are also evolving their services is really encouraging as well. Check them out...

A tall drip with room for billions in American GDP

As I walked into my neighborhood Tully's coffee shop - Wallingford represent - this morning to settle in for a few hours of work, I took a quick look around. The place is packed - it always is since they went to free wi-fi. 30 of my closest strangers are all cranking away on laptops, reading docs, one woman is laying out what is obviously a contract-work photography project, another is talking on a cell phone about "not wanting to lose this deal", and there are two separate job interviews going on. My business partner, not terribly surprisingly, happens to be sitting over in the corner doing some market research for one of our clients. I wandered over and made the joke that's being made all over the country these days, the irony being in the context not the language: "Another day at the office!" Then I did a little mental math: at any one time there are probably 10 people or more in the high-end coffee shops all over this country doing services, contract, or some other kind of work that doesn't require them to be in the middle of a skein of cubicles. Let's say they average $50/hour in comp for their work. That's 5 or 6 grand a day in productivity getting cranked out of just one retail coffee outlet. I'm guessing that there are north of 20,000 Tully's, Starbucks, Peet's, Zoka's, Seattle's Best, mom-and-pop cafes, and wherever else has tables and good coffee and will let you linger for a while if you want across the lower 48. Assume for sake of argument that only 25% of these places are actually located in urban centers with an abundance of the mobile, flexible, services workers who fit the remote productivity profile I've painted above. That's almost $10 billion a year in GDP getting served up along with all the caffeine and scones. Now I think I'll have a refill and get a little more work done...

Google is an extension

When thinking about the experience you want people to have with your brand, your media, your product, your shopping experience, etc., one of the first things you should ask is how they are going to find "it" (whatever "it" is). The answer in most cases is search. Not the search on your site but rather the search out there. The Other search. The search owned, operated, and controlled by Google and others. In this sense Google is one of the most potentially powerful "features" your site can and should enable. SEO is the enablement of this feature. If your site doesn't pop on the first results page for the keywords you care about, then the feature is broken and it needs fixing. Potential customers won't find you and will go to a competitor instead. Search engine discoverability enabled through effective SEO is one of the core features your site needs in order to deliver an exceptional user experience. Make it so!

Photo Sharing in NYT

After posting yesterday about photo sharing at the Death Cab for Cutie concert, I saw this article on the front page of the NYT this AM. Digital cameras (including those integrated in cell phones) are everywhere. Snapping (is that an antiquated term at this point?) and sharing those pictures and videos is behavior typical of more and more teens and twenty-somethings. If "experience" is part of or entirely what you are selling, think about ways to incorporate the process of "documentation" into your product or service experience.

Death Cab for Cutie

A few observations from last night's Death Cab for Cutie show at the Key Arena in Seattle: 1. The band is good, even when seen in a pretty large venue. Go see them if you like their music and have the opportunity. 2. Concerts today are not like how they were twenty years ago. As far as we could tell, there wasn't any smoking, drinking, or some such craziness like there would have been fifteen years ago at a show like this one. Not sure if it was the band or what but many thousands of really well behaved high school and college kids comprised the crowd. Kind of nice but also a little disconcerting. Come to think of it, what societal norms and cultural taboos do teenagers today rebel against? Or is the whole concept of teenage rebellion so last century? 3. Cell phones aren't just for calling people. During the slower songs in the set, hundreds of people held up their phones, illuminated the screens and waved them back and forth. Cell phones have replaced lighters at rock shows evidently. What's more, anyone with a phone was taking pictures of the scene, the band, etc. I can only imagine how many of the images and videos are today part of thousands of Seattle-area teenagers' MySpace pages and posted up on YouTube. If I were Death Cab or any other band for that matter, I'd do whatever I could to get members of the audience to take whatever video, audio, and images they want and share them with all to see. Unbelievably powerful (and cheap!) promotion... To wit, here's a video from an earlier Death Cab show shot on someone's cell phone: Wild, wacky stuff...

The Agency Party is Coming to an End

So according to this story in Ad Age, Google is offering a small, select group of advertisers the opportunity to buy radio ad inventory through AdWords. The service is called Google Audio. There is certainly some wisdom to this in that it expands the size of the market for radio advertising thereby driving up competition for necessarily scarce audio ad impressions. Economics 101. From Google's perspective, the more AdWords becomes a full-service platform offering advertisers the opportunity to bid on ad inventory across multiple channels (Web, print, radio, TV (anyone know if Spot Runner and Google are talking these days?)). By combining a low cost of entry auction model with inventory across multiple channels, Google can become the first and last place advertisers need to go for campaign management and reach. Smart, savvy, and entirely within the realm of possibility. A question this raises is what, if any, impact this new, more integrated, and more dynamic pricing and sales model will have on the radio industry in general. By exposing the true market-value of radio ad inventory to advertisers, will Google Audio have the counter-intuitive effect of putting downward pressure on advertising radio rates in general? Competition in the "long-tail" of radio ad inventory will certainly increase and drive up effective prices for those spots, but what about the drive-time spots? Will advertisers continue to spend as much as they have given the additional visibility they'll have into what's happening in the market for similar kinds of ad impressions? When you add the two together (tougher to sell ads at "premium" rates, easier to sell ads at off hours etc) do publishers stand to gain or lose? It is truly fascinating to see how the Web in general and companies like Google in particular are driving a new level of competition and transparency in markets that have been closed since inception. By offering market-driven, dynamic pricing and virtually real-time performance data, the likes of Google and others are creating a vastly larger and more efficient market for advertising. While the promise of more transparency and accountability from publishers to advertisers makes for exciting times if you're a marketer (or a performance-oriented marketing services firm like ours at Spring Creek Group), it no doubt makes traditional advertising and "traditional" full-service marketing agencies more than a little nervous. Afterall, a lack of transparency is what created the opportunity to charge a hefty percent of spend with little-to-zero accountability for the end result. As the market becomes more efficient, the longstanding revenue model for the established ad agencies looks more and more like its history.

The 3 Characteristics of Successful Viral Campaigns

I've been musing about this topic lately -- what is the difference between the email, video, post, article, site, forum, service, widget, or whatever that "goes viral" and the one that just hangs out there languishing ad infinitum without achieving the reach, awareness, and traffic that it's creators had hoped for? Well I may not have the complete answer, but here's my summary perspective on the 3 key characteristics that seem to spark and sustain viral phenomenons. You might say, "it can't really be that simple, can it?" I think it just might be. Have ideas or opinions to take umbrage with, or complement, mine? Feel free to add your comments to this post. The more laughter, adrenaline, or money it creates for web users, the more likely it is that THIS post will go viral too... Oh, and a couple points of definition to qualify my statements below. "Quickly" means in two minutes or less, and "for free" means really, truly no financial cost now or in the future. And one more thing: possessing not just one, but instead two or all three of the characteristics below has a multiplicative effect on the speed and reach that something goes viral, in my view. Cheers. THE 3 CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESSFUL VIRAL CAMPAIGNS: 1) It dramatically entertains quickly - for free 2) It dramatically surprises quickly - for free 3) It makes or saves people money - for real - for free

Media are Social

Read this post by Jeremiah about the PR industry being slow to understand let alone embrace the perils and opportunities brought about by the emergence of social media. In today's media and communications world of interactive everything, rather than talking about social media as a discrete entity to be analyzed in isolation, it's more important to internalize the fact that any digital medium is, or will be very soon, social. Unlike a few years ago, today there is a person, an audience, a market on the other end with the ability to not only read and/or listen to your message but also to respond. When Tim O'Reilly coined the term "Architecture of Participation" to describe what soon became fundamentally understood and embraced by any company doing Web 2.0 work, the notion of media being social is essentially what he was getting at.

Part 2: Changing Climates for Microsoft and Google, Desktops and Webs

A terrific followup to Part I. (Posted earlier) Stepping back from the technical complexities involved in the Google - Microsoft face-off, it's incredibly exciting to recognize we, as information users and consumers, are on the cusp of yet another seismic shift in communication modalities. In other words, strap yourselves in...

While we're on the subject...

Brad Feld's post refers to an article titled "Changing Climates for Microsoft and Google, Desktops and Webs". Terrific read about the changing landscapes of personal computing, software, and media.

As the robber barons found out, when a railroad achieves critical mass you make a boatload of money. Better yet, once that track is laid it's very difficult to move aside. Like any good robber baron, Microsoft would love for Google to compete on the same field where Microsoft owns all the rails and most of the trains. In fact, that kind of GoogleOS is Microsoft's wildest fantasy come true. Microsoft would be fully capable, and would probably relish the opportunity, of roughing Google up, dragging them through the mud and sending them on their way - just like they did with Sun, Apple, IBM, Netscape, Novell and Digital Research.

There's more. A lot more. Check it out.